


'Stonehenge': Post-Apocalypse

by strangeandcharm



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Castiel Whump, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-23
Updated: 2013-09-23
Packaged: 2017-12-27 10:16:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangeandcharm/pseuds/strangeandcharm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do happily-ever-afters work on angels? Castiel gets to find out, but it’s bittersweet...</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Stonehenge': Post-Apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

> AU. Set after the season five finale. Despite the title, it actually has nothing to do with Misha's film _Stonehenge Apocalypse_ and everything to do with Spinal Tap’s ‘Stonehenge’.

 

 

 

 

Castiel opens his eyes and Dean’s leaning over him with a huge smile on his face and a cup of Starbucks coffee in each hand. “Hey,” he says brightly. “Rise and shine, snoozy.”

It’s weird, but Castiel has absolutely no recollection of falling asleep. He frowns and sits upright, almost knocking one of the drinks out of Dean’s grip. He stares around him at the motel room – generic, nothing too extraordinary – and then looks down at himself. He’s wearing a white t-shirt and, after he pulls down the blanket sprawled over his lap to check, dark blue boxers. His legs are bare. He stares at them for a few moments, puzzled, before looking up at Dean. “How did I get here?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “You got drunk, I put you to bed. I’m not your mom, Cas, so don’t do that again.”

“I was drunk?”

“You don’t remember?” Dean places one of the cardboard cups on the nightstand and wanders across the room, taking a sip from his own drink before adding, “Actually, I suppose you _were_ pretty out of it. You haven’t got that angelic tolerance any more and it showed.”

Castiel places a hand on his forehead. Something feels wrong. He can’t quite fathom what it is, but he doesn’t feel right. He feels disjointed, like he’s sideways when he should be vertical. It makes his stomach roll in apprehension and he frowns, wondering when his stomach started doing things like that anyway. “Why was I drinking?” he ventures.

“Celebrating the end of the apocalypse,” Dean replies smugly, shooting him a grin. “Not every day you help save the world, Cas.”

“Lucifer.... I remember Lucifer...” Castiel concentrates harder. “And Sam. We lost Sam. You lost Sam.”

Dean’s face falls a little before he shrugs. “He’ll be alright.”

Castiel blinks. “Alright?” he repeats, thrown by Dean’s flippancy.

“Sure. He’s Sammy. He can look after himself. Guess it’s just us two against the world now, Cas. I hope you’re ready cause I’ve got a lot to show you about bein’ human.”

“Human?” Castiel parrots, looking down at his hands. He catches his breath. They’re just hands. There’s nothing beneath the skin, no light, no power, no... angel. He tries to move his wings and can’t. He’s stuck. He’s in this body and it’s stuck to him like glue.

He’s human.

“How did... how did...” The room sways and warps for a few moments, making him gasp, and then Dean’s got a hand on his shoulder and is staring at him beatifically.

“Just go with it, man. This is your life now.”

 

~ ~ ~

 

Castiel has no choice. He goes with it.

 

~ ~ ~

 

‘Going with it’ means accompanying Dean on a multitude of hunts. Castiel watches him fight spirits and werewolves and banshees with a faint sense of pride, something that grows as the days pass and he adjusts to his new human emotions. He can still fight, if not as powerfully, and between them they cut a swath across North America until supernatural entities are few and far between.

“We should get medals,” says Dean as they share fries in a bar in Kentucky. “Like Oscars, only for services to mankind. Think how many lives we’ve saved this year, Cas, what with the non-apocalypse and everything. We’re, like, genuine heroes.” He chews a fry and adds seriously, “I can’t remember ever feeling this good.”

“You don’t miss Sam?” Castiel queries, remembering his friend’s brother with a jolt. He hasn’t thought about Sam in a month and Dean hasn’t mentioned him for as long as Castiel can recall.

“I’m sure he’s in Heaven now,” Dean replies off-handedly. “You don’t lock up the Devil by sacrificing yourself like that without getting a big reward from the Man upstairs.”

Castiel nods, agreeing with him completely, although a tiny voice at the back of his mind murmurs _wrong wrong this is wrong_. He shakes his shoulders, settles into his seat and dips a fry in some mayo, staring at it contemplatively. “I like eating.”

“Yeah, I know you do. You’re starting to get tubby.”

“I’m not tubby.”

“You’re totally tubby.”

Castiel feels time shift strangely, like someone just flicked the hands of his own personal clock backwards. He allows it to fall in place again and says to Dean, “You mentioned the Man upstairs.”

“Yeah?”

“There is no Man upstairs.”

Dean smiles indulgently. “Course there isn’t, you fool. Why do you think we’re the ones who stopped the apocalypse?”

“We’re heroes,” agrees Castiel. “We deserve medals.”

 

~ ~ ~

 

It gets harder and harder for Castiel to remember being an angel.

 

~ ~ ~

 

There are popcorn kernels stuck in his teeth and his hands are unpleasantly sticky. He can feel Dean tense up beside him on the couch and, from experience, understands that this is a sign that something amusing is coming up in the movie they’re watching together. Determined not to miss it, Castiel narrows his eyes and stares at the television screen, his mind analytical, anxious to assess and react to the humor as it unfolds.

He doesn’t get it, though.

“I don’t get it,” he reveals, feeling oddly apologetic, as though he’s disappointed Dean beyond all measure.

Dean sighs and pauses the DVD. “Come on, Cas, it’s not rocket science.”

“I get rocket science. What I don’t get is why a small model of a neolithic monument is funny.”

Dean throws up his hands; popcorn spills onto his lap with the movement. “It’s supposed to be Stonehenge, Cas. You know, big and magnificent and mysterious and enigmatic... it’s supposed to be the highlight of their entire gig! But it comes down from the sky and it’s so small a _dwarf_ could crush it. Look at their faces, man! It’s funny!”

Castiel stares at the members of Spinal Tap frozen on the screen. “So the humor is derived from the fact they were expecting something big and they actually got something small?”

“Well, if you boil it down to the fundamentals, yeah.”

Castiel turns to look at Dean. His expression is so hopeful, so earnest, that suddenly something clicks inside Castiel’s mind and he smiles broadly. “It’s funny,” he agrees. “I think it’s funny, Dean.”

Dean’s face lights up. He looks like a parent who’s just watched their child take their first steps or balance on a bike without falling over. The thought makes Castiel’s smile even wider and he barks out a laugh that he doesn’t realize is coming.

“You look goofy when you smile, anyone ever told you that?” Dean tells him fondly.

“I don’t laugh very much, so no.”

“You should laugh more. It suits you.”

“You make me laugh, Dean.”

Dean’s eyes sweep down to Castiel’s lips and he leans forward to kiss him. Castiel tastes popcorn and beer, feels nothing but warmth and love. He closes his eyes and leans into Dean’s palm when it rests on his cheek.

“My hands are sticky,” Dean says abruptly, pulling away with a soft chuckle. “Your face is all popcorny now.”

Castiel lifts Dean’s hand and licks his fingers clean.

 

~ ~ ~

 

He shows Dean the world. He doesn’t understand why, but he wants to, and they travel everywhere. Dean knows every inch of the United States so they drive around Canada in Dean’s much-loved vehicle before travelling down to the very tip of Tierra del Fuego. They always have money for gas and places to stay for the night. Castiel wonders, just once, where the money comes from, but Dean merely laughs and tells him credit cards are cool.

They make love across an entire continent. Castiel can’t explain why once he thought sex was a carnal act when Dean makes him feel anything but carnal, only loved.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Castiel finds it difficult to remember a time before this, a time when the world was in danger and they both had jobs that involved saving it. Everywhere is calm now. The years pass and humanity gets on with its business and nobody mentions Lucifer or Hell or angels or pain. Life is good. Life is amazing.

Dean’s terrified of flying, and Castiel helps him overcome it. He grips his hand as the plane arches into the air and tells him that flying is just a question of physics, not magic, and physics make the world run smoothly so why should their flight not run smoothly because of it?

“I don’t care, I still hate flying,” Dean snaps, squeezing his eyes shut.

“You’d feel differently if you’d ever flown across the Pacific and felt the wind in your hair,” Castiel smiles. “There’s nothing quite like it. It’s freedom.”

Dean’s eyes open quickly and he glares at him. “The wind in your hair over the Pacific? What are you, a bird? There’s no wind on planes.”

Castiel frowns, baffled. Why had he said that? And when had he ever flown across the Pacific? He shakes his head, disturbed, and then Dean starts to hum something awkward and strident that makes their flight attendant laugh and offer him a drink. Dean accepts. Castiel stares out of the window, Dean’s fingers crushing his palm, and inexplicably thinks about updrafts and jet streams.

 

~ ~ ~

 

They’re standing in a line at Cairo International Airport, anticipating the wall of heat that will hit them when they exit the building but excited about their plans for the next few days, when Castiel glances at the passport in Dean’s hand and feels a ripple run through the world. “How did you get that?” he asks.

Dean looks at him like he’s crazy. “The US government gave it to me. Where else would I get it?”

Castiel struggles to explain his unease. “I thought... weren’t you... didn’t the police want you?”

“For what? Donut runs?” Dean chuckles and pats him on the arm. “Jetlag’s kicking in fast, huh?”

Castiel feels another shudder run through their surroundings and has to close his eyes. When he opens them again, Dean’s standing at the feet of the Sphinx and Castiel tries to ignore the fact that he remembers how the creature looked before thousands of years of desert sand scraped away its face.

 

~ ~ ~

 

They sit atop Uluru and stare out at the Australian landscape as the sun sets, fiery gold in a corner of the sky. There’s not another soul around. It’s just them. Dean’s breathing is labored from the climb.

“I’m gettin’ old,” he wheezes, patting his chest.

Castiel feels his knees ache in protest at their exertions. “So am I.”

Dean finds his hand against the rock and squeezes it. “Guess we’re growin’ old together.”

It’s peculiar, but Castiel can remember when this land was young. Right now he feels older than the Earth, but that’s ridiculous. He’s just a few years older than Dean and Dean’s only just hit his mid-forties. It’s not old. Not really.

They have their whole lives ahead of them.

 

~ ~ ~

 

“It’s amazing what you humans can accomplish. You can make beauty out of nothing but steel, bolts and rivets.”

“Cas, I got news for you, but you’re human too. Why do you keep acting like you’re something else?”

“I... don’t know. Slip of the tongue. Sorry.”

Dean taps the metal railing and stares across Paris. “It’s a view to a kill.”

Castiel jerks his head, gazing at him sharply. “I’m sorry?”

But Dean just grins and nudges him with his shoulder. “ _A View To A Kill_. They shot it here. Roger Moore ran around the Eiffel Tower and shot the bad guys.”

“I see.” Castiel looks away, staring out across Paris. As Dean waxes lyrical about the merits of Sean Connery’s Bond versus Daniel Craig’s Bond and how tragic it was that nobody made any new 007 movies after MGM went bust in 2011, he wonders why the word ‘kill’ made him jump quite so much.

Perhaps it’s because Dean wouldn’t kill a fly, and neither would he.

 

~ ~ ~

 

They settle down when Dean’s back starts acting up and he can’t drive any more, although he refuses to sell the Chevy. Castiel never learnt to drive – no point, he’s always by Dean’s side – and so the car sits in their garage and Dean polishes it when he’s feeling up to it.

They’re slowing down now, but it’s a pleasant slide toward old age. Dean is grey and complains that he can’t eat spicy food any more. Castiel misses being able to walk up stairs without needing to sit down at the summit. But they look after each other and they’re happy, as happy as Castiel can possibly imagine being.

“It’s been a good life, hasn’t it?” Dean asks him one night as they watch _This Is Spinal Tap_ for the millionth time on their ancient Blu-ray player. “I mean, I ain’t got no complaints or regrets. Have you?”

Castiel thinks long and hard. “I wish I could remember my childhood,” he declares, and Dean leans in to kiss his neck by way of compensation. They’ve discussed this before. “But no, other than that I feel fulfilled.”

“Ever wish we coulda had a family? You don’t have anybody and I don’t have anybody... I suppose some would say that’s kind of sad.”

Castiel twists to stare into Dean’s eyes. “You’re my family and you know it.”

Dean pats his knee. “Yeah, I guess we lucked out, didn’t we? We don’t need anybody else. Never did.”

_This is wrong,_ says the traitorous voice in Castiel’s mind, but he’s long since learned to block it out.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Dean wakes him in the middle of the night. His face is shadowed in moonlight and impossible to read.

“It’s comin’ to an end now, Cas.”

“What is? Dean?”

“You and me. Us. You’re almost empty and it’s time to say goodbye.”

Castiel tries to sit upright but can’t. He’s exhausted. He lifts his head off the pillow and it drops down again. “I don’t understand,” he murmurs, feeling cold and ill. “What’s happening?”

“You’re running out of blood,” says Dean, and he smiles. Castiel sees red teeth glinting in the moonlight and it scares him.

“You’re bleeding,” he gasps.

“It’s not my blood. It’s yours. This is cannibalism, in a way. We’re cousins. Where I come from I’m kind of an angel too.”

Castiel doesn’t know what he’s talking about; all he knows is that he’s terrified. “Dean?” he chokes, panic in his voice, and Dean smiles warmly and runs a hand down the side of his face.

“I’m not Dean, Castiel. I never have been. You’ve been asleep all this time, but I made it good for you. You taste extraordinary, do you know that? Incredible, like nothing I’ve ever tasted before. And you’ve lived for months. Most humans die in a week or so, but you... I was starting to think you were everlasting, but you’re not. Even an angel runs out of blood eventually.”

“A... Angel? What? I don’t understand...”

Dean squeezes his shoulder. “Goodbye, Castiel. You can die now.”

Castiel feels that flickering sensation again, the one that’s haunted him throughout his life, as though something is trying to pull him somewhere. He doesn’t want to go. “No!” he moans, but as he tries to struggle Dean’s head snaps round and he stares at something across the room that Castiel can’t see.

“Your friends are here,” he snarls, flickering blue flames gathering around his hands. “What incredible timing they have. Shame it’s too–”

The world, whatever world this is, goes dark.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Castiel gasps awake so hard his body arches into the air and unseen hands have to hold him down to stop him flipping over. Everything’s too bright, sunbeams darting everywhere; echoes of his cry lurch around him and he’s cold, _so cold_. His back hits the floor and he shivers pitifully, squinting into the brightness and feeling utterly, totally wretched.

“It’s okay, you’re back – we got you,” says a familiar voice, and Castiel manages to open an eye wide enough to see Dean leaning over him. But it’s not the Dean he knows. It’s Dean from fifty years ago, young and handsome – different. This isn’t his Dean. This isn’t his world. Castiel can’t help but cry out in horror as reality snaps back into place around him. In the few seconds before it does, just as the pieces of his once-enchanted mind fall into place, he reaches out a dirty, bloodied hand and grips Dean’s arm, seeking comfort.

He’s seeking it from the wrong Dean, and comfort is not forthcoming.

“It was a Djinn,” Sam says unnecessarily from somewhere behind him, but Castiel already knows; he can feel the needle in his neck where his blood was drained out for the Djinn to drink. He quakes and shudders and Dean checks his pulse, the expression on his youthful face sympathetic, but there’s nothing there that Castiel knows. There’s no love, there’s no devotion, just a friend concerned for another friend – another friend who isn’t even human. Grace comes flooding back into him and Castiel squeezes his eyes shut as it heals him from top to toe, replacing everything the Djinn sucked out of him.

But there’s a hole inside him that never used to be there and his grace doesn’t fill that.

 

~ ~ ~

 

He is healed, yes, but the boys take him to their hotel with them anyway because Sam says he wants to “keep an eye on him”. Castiel knows he’s acting strangely but he can’t help it. This world is so much harsher than the one in the Djinn’s enchantment. It reminds him of when he and Dean walked into the fierce Egyptian sun and gasped as they realized they were somewhere totally new; Castiel is a stranger in his own land. He hopes it doesn’t last long.

He doesn’t speak for most of the night, answering his friends’ questions with one-word answers. He thanks them for rescuing him and ascertains that he was held captive for almost three months. It had been a lifetime in his head. A lifetime with Dean.

When Sam – with a prescience that Castiel had never credited him with before now – senses that he should leave them alone, he’s hugely grateful and yet half-terrified. The door closes and Dean sits on the end of his bed, placing a hand on each knee. Castiel, wrapped in a blanket despite his protests that he was no longer cold, stares back at him from a chair.

“So what did you see?” Dean asks.

“I would prefer not to say,” Castiel answers quickly.

Dean lowers his head. He stares at the backs of his hands for a while. When he looks up again, his eyes are shining. “I got whammied by a Djinn a few years back. I wasn’t there for very long, but it felt like ages in my head.” His gaze settles on Castiel. “It was so real.”

“Yes.” Castiel can barely look at him. It hurts.

“I dreamed my mom was alive, and Sam and his dead girlfriend were still together. There were no demons, no hunts, nothing. It was... paradise, I guess. Only some things were missing. It wasn’t quite perfect. My dad wasn’t there, and me and Sam weren’t all that close. It was like the Djinn couldn’t smooth out the rough edges or something.”

A silence falls. Eventually Castiel says, “There was no God in my dream.”

Dean nods, but doesn’t speak.

Castiel licks his lips and adds softly, “You were all there was.”

“Whoa. You sayin’ you dreamt I was _God?_ ”

Castiel stares up the ceiling. When he speaks, his words shake as they tumble from his lips. “No. There was no God. Only you.”

Another silence descends. When Castiel summons up the courage to look down at Dean again, he sees his friend’s face is sad. “I’m sorry, Cas,” Dean says, looking uncomfortable; fragile, even. “It was just a dream.”

“I know.”

“I can’t... I’m not...” He stops, tries again. “Are you saying you and me were...” He gestures with a shaking hand. Castiel nods. Dean rubs a hand down his face and shakes his head. “Is that something... that had to come from somewhere for the Djinn to use it. Are you... do you really...”

His stop-and-start sentences grate on Castiel’s nerves. “I don’t know,” he says abruptly, and pulls off the blanket. He stands and turns to stare out of the window.

“I don’t swing that way,” Dean says clumsily. “I don’t want you thinking that there’s any, you know...”

“You don’t have to defend your heterosexuality against the whims of my subconscious, Dean,” Castiel points out brusquely, clenching his fists in his coat pockets out of Dean’s sight. “I couldn’t control what I dreamt under the Djinn’s spell any more than you could. Whatever unfolded happened for no reason I can determine.”

Another silence. Then: “Were we happy?”

Castiel sighs and closes his eyes. “Very.” When he hears nothing in return, he can’t help but elaborate. “We were watching _Spinal Tap_ when you kissed me. The Stonehenge was too small and I licked popcorn butter off your fingers.”

Dean clearly can’t process quite how much that moment means to him, choosing to come at it from a direction Castiel isn’t expecting. “So you watched _This Is Spinal Tap_ in a Djinn-dream?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know you really watched it? Wasn’t it imaginary, just like the dream? You’ve never seen it before, have you?”

Castiel turns. “No. Dean, this isn’t what I...”

“I’m sorry, Cas,” Dean says with sudden urgency, getting to his feet. “I just... I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do with this. I don’t know what to say or how to feel or anything. It’s not anything I was expecting. You were missing and we were worried but it turns out you were having some kind of dream love affair with me and it’s just... I don’t know what to do with that. I’m sorry.”

Castiel doesn’t look up as Dean brushes past him and out of the door. He stands and stares at the bed, remembering.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Aircraft are no longer a necessity. Castiel reaches Australia in the blink of an eye and sits on the sun-warmed rock of Uluru as the sun sets around him. Unlike in his dream, there are buildings, motor vehicles and humans scattered around the sacred site, but Castiel ignores them.

He thinks about Dean and knows that there’s a hole inside him which will never, ever be filled. He thinks about love and companionship. He thinks about how he can never grow old with Dean because he doesn’t _grow_ old. The Dean here, in reality, is all sharp edges and sarcasm, paranoia and hatred, existing only for family and his fellow humans. He likes Castiel as a friend but he’s not the gentle, tender Dean from the dream: he will never hold Castiel’s hand on an aeroplane or stroke hair out of his eyes or kiss the inside of his thighs. He’s Dean Winchester, the real thing, and he is not Castiel’s.

Castiel doesn’t know whether to hate the Djinn for making him feel this way now, or love the Djinn for making him feel that way _then._

 

~ ~ ~

The text message he receives three days later contains the name of a motel, a room number, a time and the word _please._ Castiel stares at it numbly, feeling hollow. He should ignore it, ignore Dean, go back to Heaven and resume his old duties. Dean doesn’t own him. Not this Dean, anyway.

Instead, he arrives at the motel three minutes late. It’s not much of a gesture of defiance but it’s all he can muster.

“Hey,” says Dean. He’s standing in the middle of the room. Sam isn’t there.

Castiel nods at him, keeping his body held stiff. “What is it?”

Dean coughs uncomfortably, then tosses the square box in his hand over to the angel. Castiel catches it and recognizes the cover instantly. “I don’t understand,” he says, staring at the DVD sleeve and back over at Dean.

“It was bugging me,” Dean says with a shrug. “You watched it in a magical dream given to you by a Djinn. You could have been watching a Jonas Brothers concert for all you knew. I wanted to make sure you really saw it.”

Castiel turns the DVD over. The pictures on the back correspond to his memories of the movie. He opens his mouth to say so, but closes it again when Dean holds out a bowl of popcorn.

“Thought we could watch it together,” he explains. His face is gentle and kind, like the Dean in the dream. Castiel feels a ripple run through him that has nothing to do with an enchantment; it’s relief. It could even be love.

“I would enjoy that very much,” he says, breaking into a grin.

Dean grins back. “You look kind of goofy when you smile, anyone ever tell you that?”

“You might have mentioned it.”

Dean snorts and turns away. Castiel takes a seat on the bed and stares at the blank TV screen while Dean removes the DVD from the case.

“Ah, Cas?”

“Yes?”

Somehow, Dean manages to sound terrified and hopeful all at once as he says, “I can’t guarantee there’ll be any finger-licking, but, uh... You never know.”

Castiel nods serenely. “Of course, Dean. I understand.”

 

~ ~ ~

 

Sometimes, Castiel has learnt, you can expect something very big and get something very small instead. Popcorn and a movie is small, but it’s a start.

 

~ ~ ~


End file.
